A Real Food MyPlate Infographic

Kristin Wartman is a food writer living in Brooklyn. She has a Masters in Literature from UC Santa Cruz and is a Certified Nutrition Educator. She is interested in the intersections of food, health, politics, and culture. You can read more of her writing at kristinwartman.wordpress.com.

I often see food articles that resonate with my point of view and scroll down to see Kristin’s name as the author. She did a deconstruction and then a reconstruction of the new MyPlate after it came out this summer. I thought our readers would enjoy her reconstruction (below).

The new MyPlate seems like a vast improvement to me simply because it is readable. The last pyramid looked to me like something that John Nash drew on a bad day (A Beautiful Mind). Marion Nestle probably sums the new graphic up best by saying, ““This is a step in the right direction. It’s the best they could come up with and some education needs to go with it, as always.” I like the extra education that Kristin came up with. What do you think?

In my recent critique of the new USDA dietary guidelines, I wrote that we’ll never see a real food version of MyPlate as long as the food industry holds sway over the guidelines and USDA continues to promote industrial foods.

While this is true, there’s no reason we can’t create our own real food version of MyPlate to promote what we think is healthy and what’s not. Admittedly, it’s difficult to convey a lot of information in a single graphic but MyPlate promotes foods that are truly unhealthy. There are structural problems with MyPlate as well—dairy should be included in the protein category and the glass next to the plate should be water.

Allowing industrial food corporations to influence the dietary guidelines — from dairy and meat to apple juice and corn flakes — makes it clear that the health of the American people is not the USDA’s top priority.

My real food approach to MyPlate clearly conveys what should be included and what should not be, and has no agenda other than presenting the healthiest real food diet for all Americans. The underpinning of a real food diet is plant-based and focuses on whole foods that are organic and sourced locally, whenever possible.

Simply giving these guidelines isn’t going to change the fact that too many Americans lack access to real foods — but change doesn’t seem to be happening from the top down. In the meantime, by providing clear and accurate guidelines based on real food, Americans can see what a healthy diet really looks like and start demanding greater access to these foods.